


An Impromptu Respite

by ScarletLoup



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and more fluff, Jaws of Hakkon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 05:11:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16079135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletLoup/pseuds/ScarletLoup
Summary: The chance to learn more about Inquisitor Ameridan is the opportunity of a lifetime for Bram Kenric. But in studying the past, he has a tendency to overlook the present  - including the ever-endearing dwarven scout who has caught his eye on several instances.





	An Impromptu Respite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyNorbert](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNorbert/gifts).



            The wilds of Fereldan were a far departure from the halls of the University of Orlais, that much anyone could tell. But it still never failed to weigh on Bram Kenric as he oversaw the Inquisition’s expedition. Not that he minded getting dirty, but there were certain amenities one grew used to that were simply unrealistic to expect nestled in the shadow of the Frostbacks. Their unforgiving shadow loomed over most everything and never failed to remind him that he was no longer in Starkhaven or Orlais.

            And yet that wasn’t necessarily bad. The sounds of the wilds never failed to lull him into the most refreshing sleep, and he woke each morning with a stronger sense of purpose and discovery than he had felt before.

            But the evenings were still something Bram hadn’t gotten used to. Traditionally, he’d kept his hours before bed reserved for writing letters and annotating his notes. Under the light of a vast array of candles in his Orlesian quarters, this propensity for night work hadn’t been an issue. But supplies had to be limited in the field.

            He found himself hunched over his desk now, nose buried into one of the ancient tombs he had carted out in the weeks leading up to the expedition. The pages stunk of incense and age, enough so that he caught himself sneezing softly into a handkerchief with each turn of the page. The light of the two candles on his desk puttered and threatened to go out in the humidity of the forest air, making reading all the more difficult. Occasionally, some creature would cry out in the woods around the camp, striking a pang of fear through Bram. It was a haunting shriek of sorts, something he certainly hadn’t heard before his work had begun out here.

            These variables all working together had put him into a bit of an irate mood. Oh, and then there was the Inquisitor herself. No one in the camp had expected her to pick this evening to make a sudden appearance and replenish her supplies. For the scouts and other members of the Inquisition, her appearance was a breath of fresh air and a reminder of the importance of their work. For Bram, it meant an evening of lost work.

            As he had imagined, her appearance meant a small celebration of sorts would take place. But “small” was a relative statement. Surely, it was small compared to the galas of the lords and ladies of Starkhaven or Orlais, but this was nothing to scoff at. Some thirty or so scholars, scouts, and others had broken out the barrels of ale hours ago. By now, the group of them had found a handful of individuals who could play music, and they had begun to take turns playing bawdy tavern songs. And of course, there was the untamed, off-pitch singing that was beginning to drown out even the piercing cries of the area’s fauna. There was no rhythm, no real cohesion to any of it. Each individual brought their own lyrics and accents to the song, for they had learned each one _just_ a bit differently than the rest of the individuals. The whole thing was an awful cacophony of shouted nonsense over the out-of-tune instrumentation of some of the men and women who fancied themselves bards.

            And eventually, he simply couldn’t take it all.

            “Andraste’s _ass_!” he shouted, forcing his quill down onto the table. The poor table hadn’t been built for such force, however, and one leg buckled under the sudden blow, sending a pile of books tumbling into the dirt. His papers slid eagerly after them, carried along by bottles of ink which promptly opened and spilt across a beautiful map of the Frostback Basin, complete with currently-drying annotations from Bram himself.

            “Oh, for the love of the _Maker_!” Bram scrambled to the ground to knock the bottle aside, hoping he had preserved at least some of his work. In doing so, he caught his chair on his foot and set it falling to the floor beside him with a visceral _thump_. It sent him hurtling as well, so that he landed among his books and papers.

            Slowly, he picked himself up and let out a sigh. And for once, he could hear himself sigh. At any other time, he would have been thankful for a moment to collect himself, but the unnerving silence meant that something had stopped the festivities outside. And as he began to hear the soft murmuring and giggles, he realized that _he_ had been the reason for the silence. Somehow, over their own drunken bellowing, they had heard him make an absolute fool of himself.

            Blood rushed to Bram’s face, masking his freckles behind a violent blush as he started to gather up his belongings in a huff.

            “Professor…?” A soft voice asked as the door to his hut creaked open to reveal Scout Harding. The light of the candles was dull, but it was still quite noticeable that she was hardly able to contain an eruption of laughter. Her lips twitched with amusement as she stood in the entrance of the now-messy hovel. “You know, when they say, ‘get into your work’, I don’t actually think this is what they mean.”

            His blush spread further, and he was suddenly aware of the splatter of ink across his tunic. Still at a loss for words, he did something of a double take, looking from her to the splatter and then back up at her. And suddenly, Scout Harding lost her composure, giggling but hurriedly attempting to stifle it behind her hands.

            “Lace-ah-Lady-I mean-Scout Harding!” he sputtered, finally finding his voice. But it cracked slightly, betraying his own nervousness. “If you’re finished, I have some cleaning I need to do.” He dropped to the ground again, starting to gather up his work in a bit of a huff, the blush persisting on his face against his wishes.

            Scout Harding gathered herself after a moment as she watched him work hurriedly, making fierce eye contact with the ground. The whole scene was still amusing, and she almost lost herself in a fit of laughter as she remembered how the Inquisitor had almost snorted ale out of her nose when the whole mess had begun. But Bram didn’t know that, she realized, and he must have assumed the laughter was aimed at him.

            “I didn’t mean anything by it, Professor,” she ceded, taking a few steps forward and kneeling by the mess as well. Closer now, she could see the red of his blush on his ears. His cap had been discarded since sunset, and his reddish hair curled about wildly, only adding to the chaotic energy radiating from the entire shack. “Neither did anyone out there. Honest.”

            He looked up slowly, locking eyes with her as they both grabbed at the mess of books and papers. She’d lost that look of amusement from her eyes, but instead of an air of seriousness, she’d adopted something tender and concerned. Lace smiled back at him for a moment and held out a book to him which Bram took suddenly and held to his chest. As he grabbed at it, their hands brushed, and he could have sworn it was like lightning coursed up his arm and through his entirety.

            “You work a lot,” she continued, taking a few books for herself and moving them across the room to his nightstand. “And I don’t think any of the men have ever heard you curse with such intensity before.”

            Bram followed her to the nightstand to place his own handful of books and papers on the table as well. He coughed and cleared his throat before ruffling his own hair awkwardly.

            “I work as much as I have to.” His eyes skirted across the room before coming back to her. “Someone has to do it.” She met his gaze with a fierce intensity, her green eyes blazing as they always seemed to. He never failed to be utterly overwhelmed by the sheer power of her presence. Lace’s brow knotted slightly, forming a light impression on her forehead as she looked at him with concern.

            “That’s why you have us,” she countered, maintaining eye contact a bit longer to solidify her point before she resumed cleaning. “No one expects you to do it all, and they certainly don’t expect you to make a hermit out of yourself.”

            There was that pesky blush again.

            “I don’t ‘make a hermit’ of myself,” he retorted, but he sounded far less convincing than he wanted to, and he frowned slightly at himself. “I have _fun_.” And at this, Lace couldn’t help but smile to herself. He truly did get flustered easily – when he learned something new, when he had so many things to say at once – and she couldn’t help but find it charming. The soft Starkhaven accent he still spoke with certainly helped as well.

            “Yeah?” she questioned, cocking one hip to the side and looking at him all at once in disbelief and amusement. “Then why aren’t you out there?”

            Whatever words he had been planning on responding with caught in his throat as he attempted to find an excuse, but the truth was he really had never been good with crowds. He’d found them boisterous and overwhelming. Even the galas his parents had dragged him to in Starkhaven had left him tired. But even if he had been able to find his words, he didn’t have a chance to respond. Lace had grabbed his hand already and with a startled amount of strength, she began to drag him out of his shack and into the middle of camp. Unprepared for it all, he followed along without resistance, letting her guide him along.

            He caught his toes on a few roots and rocks as they made their way down, and for a moment he thought he would faceplant into the crowd, making everything even worse than it had been before. But he arrived in one piece, and she managed to slip him into the festivities without much of a scene at all. In fact, the singing was already picking up once more, and those around him hardly seemed to notice how he stood awkwardly and attempted to gather his bearings.

            On the fringes of the crowd now, he could begin to understand her insistence that he join them. Whereas behind the walls of his shed the voices had sounded awkward and ill-timed, they filled the center of the camp with a general buzz of life and passion. The words were unintelligible, but they made up for it in enthusiasm.

            Bram couldn’t help but smile to himself as he looked about the group. For a moment, he almost lost himself. But then a hand fastened once more around his wrist, and he looked down to see Scout Harding once more.

            “You look like an idiot – dance with me,” she teased, tugging at his arm. Bram froze, and he placed a hand over hers lightly, beginning to remove her grip from his arm.

            “I…I really can’t dance, Scout Harding,” he mumbled.

            “It’s _Lace_ ,” she corrected, giving another gentle tug as she beamed up at him. “And this isn’t really one of the Empress’s balls, Professor Kenric. No one cares if you can dance like a lord.”

            She spun him out into the growing circle of dancers, and for a moment, he swore he would pitch directly into the Inquisitor’s lap as she grabbed her own companions – the dwarf, the qunari, and the Tevinter mage – and pulled them into the crowd with her. But Lace’s grip tightened again, and he came hurtling back with slightly more grace.

            And suddenly they were face to face, with inches between them. She had let go of his arm by then, but the two of them managed to find each other’s hands. Bram couldn’t help but give a soft laugh of amusement as a dancing couple knocked into his back, nearly sending him forward into Lace’s direction. But steeled by a wave of reassurance, he steadied himself and started her off in a bit of an adjusted waltz.

            Looking back, Lace Harding would note that Bram Kenric happened to be a damn liar. He moved with a surprising amount of grace for the man who had just scattered his life’s work across the floor of his shack. She laughed to herself as he pulled her in close, spinning the two of them around smoothly in the center of the circle.

            In a moment of spontaneity, he moved his hands to her waist and lifted her from the ground and as they continued to spin. She gasped in response, utterly taken by surprise as her feet left the ground. When he returned her gently to the ground, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of reluctance. For a man who had spent his entire life studying history in the confines of a university, his hands were strong and felt safe.

            They locked eyes once more as Bram set her back down, and he felt his heart flutter in his chest as she gazed back up at him with a sudden and overwhelming adoration. He was unaware now of the way he blushed and, instead, focused only on how warm her gaze felt and how he felt like melting.

            “I…you’re…” he started, his hands still resting on her waist while he desperately tried to fill the silence between them. She rolled her eyes at him, but the truth was she could hardly find an ample way to break the silence either. There was an unspoken sort of understanding between the two of them as they stood in the middle of the dancers.

            “You look like an idiot stammering like that,” she taunted. In her own moment of extemporaneous behavior, she reached up and seized his collar. With the same energy with which she pulled him into the circle, she now pulled him down to her level. Their lips connected almost instinctually.

            Sparks seemed to fly as time around them began to slow. Bram shifted his grip on Lace so that his arms now wrapped about her waist, pulling her back towards him as she continued to cling to his collar for dear life. He tilted his head ever so slightly, and they found their lips locking almost perfectly into place as though they had been made to do so.

            Eventually, they broke apart, and he let his hands fall to her hips as she released her hold on his shirt.

            “Maker,” he breathed, a ridiculous grin spreading across his face as he looked back at her. “I suppose I ought to make a mess of things more often.” Lace smiled back up at him.

            “Or you could join us more often.” She paused, a blush now beginning to spread beneath her freckles. “Or at least just me.” Bram reached down once more to press a quick kiss into her lips, their smiles melding into each other for just a moment before he pulled away again.

            “I think I can manage to find the time in my schedule.”


End file.
